IAAF hands former Valencia marathon champion Kitwara 16-month ban over doping

Former Valencia Marathon champion Sammy Kiprop Kitwara. [Courtesy]

Former Valencia Marathon champion Sammy Kiprop Kitwara has been handed a 16-month ban by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) over a doping violation.

Kitwara was slapped with the ban after failing an in-competition doping control held in Seoul, South Korea on March 17. The long-distance runner tested positive for Terbutaline.

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) confirmed Kitwara had accepted the ban and will not appeal.

“Taking into consideration the fact that the Athlete is relatively experienced and that there are no other mitigating factors, the AIU considers the Athlete’s subjective fault to be at the ‘high’ end of the ‘normal’ category.

“Given the Athlete’s timely admission of the violation after being confronted by the AIU, there is discretion…to back-date the start of the ban to the date of sample collection.

“The Athlete has accepted the above consequences for his Anti-Doping Rule Violations and has expressly waived his right to have those consequences determined by the Disciplinary Tribunal at a hearing,” the AIU said in a statement.

The ban means that Kitwara’s results since March 17 are null and void.

Sammy Kiprop Kitwara [Courtesy]

The World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) conducted a study to investigate if inhaled terbutaline in supratherapeutic doses enhances performance in athletes.

According to WADA, Supratherapeutic inhalation of terbutaline provides an ergogenic effect on muscle strength and anaerobic performance, but decreases endurance due to side-effects.

Kitwara set a massive record at the Marathon Valencia Trinidad Alfonso EDP, an IAAF Gold Label road race, in the eastern Spanish city in 2017.

The Kenyan star produced a 2:05:15 effort to finish almost a full minute inside the previous record, moving to seventh on that year’s (2017) world list in the process.